Looking for a New Gig? How About Cyber Crime Spy School?

Graduates of the Academy of Southern California's figurer and digital forensics caste plan have nabbed jobs in cyber threat intelligence at Sony Pictures, incident response at Cylance, cyber intel at Lockheed Martin, and other covert or highly sensitive operational outfits.

Intrigued? We certainly were, and then PCMag took the Expo light track (driving is so over in LA) to USC'southward downtown campus, and met with Dr. Michael Gregory Crowley, Associate Professor of It and Informatics Practice, and Joseph South. Greenfield, Associate Professor of It Practice.

Greenfield came up with the course concept while working professionally at calculator forensics house Maryman & Associates, which showed him what was needed within industry today. Perhaps 1 of his students can help Facebook with that audit of Cambridge Analytica.

Here are edited and condensed excerpts from our conversation:

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Firstly, Dr. Crowley, requite us some groundwork on why this class is needed, particularly today.
[MC] Cyber threats and vulnerabilities pose a serious global economical hazard, and we've establish the manufacture has a loftier need for students, like ours, with practical cyber security and digital forensic skills. Nosotros know that figurer forensic skills provide an excellent way to gain regime or police enforcement employment at the local, state, or federal level, or within the private sector.

Talk us through what students learn here.
[MC] Joe needs to take that question, every bit he's the curriculum guy.
[JG] I studied informatics here at USC, and even though there were elements of the course that focused on digital forensics, subsequently I started working in the industry itself, I could see what was needed. I essentially built out the program that I wish had been hither when I was an undergrad. At present nosotros accept one of the virtually extensive courses in the U.s.a..

Do you lot teach undergrads how to pull apart hard drives with tweezers?
[JG] [Laughs] Not quite to that degree. But they certainly learn how to remove them from computers, connect them to Write Blockers and investigate what's going on within. We're trying to brand students as manufacture-ready every bit possible. That'due south what makes us unique—all of our faculty are real-earth professionals—non but enquiry academics.

How is the course structured?
[JG] This is another affair that, we feel, makes u.s.a. unique. We frame the course as a real-earth instance—we present it to the students, they have to come back with a criminal offence written report, defensible in court. We even take them downtown to the L.A. County Courthouse and then they tin can practice in front of a existent approximate. Information technology's a great feel, and properly nerve-wracking for them.

Which computer software platforms practise you use within the course?
[MC] We make sure our students are exposed to every bit much as possible, including EnCase [and] Forensics Explorer. Nosotros've just recently got licenses for Magnet AXIOM, BlackLight, MPE+, and we're considering purchasing FTK. Nosotros also train our students on open up source tools like Autopsy.

What do you need students to be expert in before they get in?
[JG] Nosotros practice trial-by-burn. There'due south no pre-requisite, just by the end of the semester, they have to exist able to code an MD5 password cracker in Python.

So they better know stuff before they come, or be prepared to slog through online tutorials during nights and weekends?
[MG] [Laughs] To be fair, we are having a massive curriculum change and will be bringing in some formal pedagogy on how to script and code because we believe that'southward necessary.
[JG] We're also bringing in updated skills training to reflect the globe our students will be entering when they graduate, particularly in terms of spoken languages, not just software systems.

Like Russian and Standard mandarin?
[JG] And Arabic.

I unit on your form is called Hackers to CEOs. Can you talk most that?
[JG] Nosotros reference some of our professional colleagues who, back in the day, when we were all teenagers, started out as hackers and are at present CEOs of companies.

Any names?
[JG] [Laughs] Nope. They might actually hurt me if I practice that. Instead, we talk about what people used to practice which was for fun and for thrills and is now much more serious, economically driven. These are people not hacking in basements today, but inside top clandestine military operations doing piece of work in national security or combating organized crime.

The world has moved on from [the movie] Hackers.
[JG] Information technology certainly has. Although I tell students they need to scout that moving-picture show, and WarGames, to understand people like Kevin Mitnick who was in jail, and on the FBI's Most Wanted listing, but now runs his own cyber security firm.

Talk to us about your BitTorrent Forensics course unit.
[JG] I developed this and presented it kickoff to the Los Angeles Electronic Crimes Chore Force because, at the time, in that location was the big security breach of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which came out on BitTorrent three weeks earlier full general release. Since so, I've had law enforcement officials confirm to me that they've used what I adult to grab people with child pornography too, past going to original host level analysis to associate the downloaded content with the metadata files to establish origins. Then information technology goes beyond Hollywood.

Good point. So, alongside Hollywood studios, the FBI, Crowdstrike, and Rapid7 are some of the employers who accept your graduates. Do you besides run professional training for employees inside these companies, as this field is expanding all the time?
[JG] We've started some initial talks with professional development programs here at USC, but nosotros have done grooming with LAPD and Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for first responder scenarios.

So they don't hit the offense scene and start touching the computer equipment earlier digital forensics gets at that place?
[JG] Exactly. We do training for the not-technical first responders who get to a scene earlier the geeks arrive. After our training, they now know not to touch the laptop; to ensure information technology'southward still powered on, then on.

Do yous have many graduates going into US Regular army Cyber Command?
[JG] If nosotros practise, they wouldn't be allowed to tell united states of america.

How about the Port of Los Angeles Cyber Command? [JG]

I do know people who worked on setting that up, from my constabulary enforcement connections, and we're building liaisons with industry all the time. Information technology's a bully setup downward there.

Can you tell us what you lot did to receive the Us Hole-and-corner Service Certificate of Appreciation?
[JG] I can't exist specific.

Conspicuously you do plenty to have roused their appreciation. Final question: what take you seen in the by half-dozen months in terms of new developments in cybercrime that have lead y'all to add in additional software programs and case studies?
[JG] Everything's about crypto-mining these days. In 2022, it was all about bespeak-of-sale malware, 2022 was all nearly ransomware, now that's been abased and people are getting infected with malware that utilizes all their resource for crypto-mining. It'southward faster for criminals to monetize and nosotros're swiftly updating our curriculum to reflect this new reality to ensure our students are fully equipped to combat this threat in the outside world.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/news/20271/looking-for-a-new-gig-how-about-cyber-crime-spy-school

Posted by: kinneytryin1978.blogspot.com

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